Tracks

“You’re a Jerk”
New Boyz

Teen dance crazes have been a summer ritual going back to the Eisenhower era. Regional party fads like the Bunny Hop, the Watusi, the Cabbage Patch, the Bartman, the Chicken Noodle Soup and, most recently, the Soulja Boy spread pandemically thanks to nagging tie-in novelty songs. Also, the moves are generally stupid, fun and easy to do. The ’09 edition of looking like an idiot is…the Jerk. (No relation to the 1960s dance.)

Straight out of L.A., the moves suggest Pee-wee Herman doing Russian folk-dance squats and hillbilly clogging in slo-mo reverse. As far as the tune goes, well, the stark track is little more than bass rumbles and claps providing the proper BPM for the kidz. Its listening pleasure depends on your tolerance for hearing a little robotic goblin voice saying “you’re a jerk” around 240 times in slightly more than three minutes. The high-school MCs in neon jeans and Ray-Bans offer little beyond resounding proof that retrocentric, lighthearted Chicago hip-hop is steering the genre. Even Hollywood is biting our style.

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